Page 19 of Sapphire Storm

“More what?”

Then his flashlight beamed landed on a serpentine paththrough the looser dirt close to the picnic table and bench. A fresh path thatcould only have been made by one creature on earth.

Ethan wasn’t afraid of snakes, but that didn’t mean heplanned on dancing in the dark with them.

“Do you see it?” Roman croaked.

“Are you okay? Did you get bit?”

“You can see it?”

“It’s gone now, but I can see the trail it left.”

“There could be more!”

Ethan stood his ground, slowly scanning the area around thebench with his flashlight. Dirt, rocks, and one winding snake’s trail leadinginto the nearby brush. That was it.

“I can’t,” Roman gasped, and for the first time Ethan couldhear the guy was sobbing. “I can’t with snakes, Ethan. Ican’t.”

After a terrible night, he’d somehow wandered straight intoone of his worst phobias, and now he was in danger of coming apart.

Next to the bench now, Ethan reached out and placed one handon Roman’s bent knee. The guy jerked then went still. Relatively still. He wasshuddering down to his bones.

“Why don’t you tell me what happened so we can make sureyou’re okay? How’s that sound?”

“It might come back. You need to check. You need to keepchecking.”

“It’s not coming back. You probably scared it worse than itscared you.”

“I can assure you that isimpossible!” Romanwailed.

“Roman, snakes don’t stalk people. They don’t hunt in packs.They’re not wolves. Now what happened? Did you step on it?”

“I think so. It jerked under my foot, and I heard a ra… ara…”

“It rattled?” Ethan asked as gently as he could.

Nodding madly in confirmation, Roman screwed his eyes shut.Shit,Ethan thought. Rattles were the last stop before a strike, which meantRoman and his reptilian friend had been closer to a rumble than he’d firstthought. Worse, Roman’s memory of what came after—including a bite requiringimmediate medical attention—might be warped by panic. “All right,” Ethan said,trying to sound calm. “Here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to examine yourlegs and your ankles and make sure you—”

“Get up on the bench.”

“It’s probably better if I—”

“No, get up on the bench. It might come back!”

“Fine.” Once he’d joined him on the splintery slats, Roman’sbreaths slowed. A little. When Ethan stretched out one of his legs and then theother, the guy didn’t resist. He tugged up the cuffs of his jeans, pushed hissocks down to examine the skin on his ankles and calves. He even examined thefabric of his jeans and his leather loafers to see if there were bite marksthat hadn’t met skin. Everything looked clean.

“You’re good.”

Roman shook his head. “I’m not good. I am very, verynotgood. And I am not getting off this bench until the sun rises.”

“Dawn is around five hours from now. You sure you want tocommit to that?”

“Yep. I’ll be able to see everything then, and I’ll walkhome. And I’m never going hiking again without a flamethrower.”

Ethan tried not to laugh. “So you can start the next bigwildfire? That doesn’t sound like a plan, sir.”

“Fine, what’s a snake’s natural predator?”

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